Lawsuit Against North Carolina School of the Arts

[abatt]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/arts/dance/north-carolina-school-of-the-arts-lawsuit.html

A lawsuit has been filed against the NCSA alleging physical, sexual and emotional abuse of students.

[On Pointe]

On 1/20/2022 at 11:02 AM, abatt said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/arts/dance/north-carolina-school-of-the-arts-lawsuit.html

A lawsuit has been filed against the NCSA alleging physical, sexual and emotional abuse of students.

Well that was a pretty depressing read.  Sexual coercion is terrible,  but honestly,  I don't understand why anyone would tolerate being hit by a ballet teacher.  Didn't anyone hit back?  It's not like North Carolina was the greatest,  most influential ballet school in the world.  One can and should go elsewhere.

[Balletwannabe]

16 minutes ago, On Pointe said:

Well that was a pretty depressing read.  Sexual coercion is terrible,  but honestly,  I don't understand why anyone would tolerate being hit by a ballet teacher.  Didn't anyone hit back?  It's not like North Carolina was the greatest,  most influential ballet school in the world.  One can and should go elsewhere.

I know of students who were slapped by a ballet teacher, the kids never told their mom, she thankfully witnessed it one day.  Abuse really messes with your mind, the logical response is often the hardest.

[canbelto]

1 hour ago, On Pointe said:

Well that was a pretty depressing read.  Sexual coercion is terrible,  but honestly,  I don't understand why anyone would tolerate being hit by a ballet teacher.  Didn't anyone hit back?  It's not like North Carolina was the greatest,  most influential ballet school in the world.  One can and should go elsewhere.

It's also often not the most prestigious schools that have the most abuse. Big schools - lots of prying eyes. Students so talented they can go elsewhere. 

[Helene]

Most of the kids in elite training are living away from home, which makes it easy to hide things from their parents: injuries, abuse, bullying, advice and criticism that means one thing:  lose weight, and we don't care how you do it.  There's a lot at stake, tens of thousands of dollars, at minimum, have been invested in the student's training, with parents moving or splitting up to live with a kid until they are old enough to be independent, plus single-minded focus on a ballet career.  It's not easy to change schools on a dime in response to one act, let alone reaching a breaking point, and the pressure to "suck it up" and not lose all of that money can come from the student or from the parents.  It's the sad part of elite training, whether in the arts or in sports.

Kids are acutely aware of where the power lies, what happens to whistleblowers, how blame is placed on the victim, how "oh, that's how they did it back in the day," that verbal abuse is dismissed as being overly sensitive to criticism, and what the cost will be if they speak up, to their careers and social lives.  Open your mouth and make trouble for a teacher, and they can make sure their extensive small-world network knows that a student is "trouble." They see over and over again how abusive teachers are respected by the administration, other teachers, and their fellow students.  Look at how the article ended:  a faculty member said she was unaware that her own daughter was being abused in the program: she didn't want to see.

As for North Carolina School of the Arts, with it's affiliation with the University of North Carolina, that gives a layer of respectability and assumed oversight that company-affiliated schools don't have.  It's also a place where parents who are hesitant to invest in strictly pre-professional training can hedge their bets by ensuring their kids have an academic education, in case dance doesn't work out, plus contemporary dance training.  It's also had teachers who had star careers as dancers, and was considered one of the top non-company affiliated schools.  (Rock School, Harid, the Kirov Academy in DC are some of the others.)

You're not going to get into NYCB from there, or, without coming from another company, to one of the companies that mostly hires their own graduates.  Those schools are also prestigious with a lot of eyes on them, but the fact is, the students don't go elsewhere, if they are set on getting into the company, which is what the schools and companies count on.  I don't think I've ever read an article about a NYCB dancer who said, "Yeah, I really wanted to dance with San Francisco Ballet, PNB, Boston Ballet, Miami City Ballet, etc., but they didn't take me, so I joined NYCB."

[vipa]

3 hours ago, On Pointe said:

Well that was a pretty depressing read.  Sexual coercion is terrible,  but honestly,  I don't understand why anyone would tolerate being hit by a ballet teacher.  Didn't anyone hit back?  It's not like North Carolina was the greatest,  most influential ballet school in the world.  One can and should go elsewhere.

Things can be confusing for a ballet student. A teacher can lift your leg, maybe lift it quickly, maybe yank it up with force and almost knock you over. It might seem easy at a distance, but It can be hard to know what crosses the line especially when everyone around you is accepting of it. Add to that the fact that students want attention, and often interpret any kind of attention as the teacher liking them (as a dancer) and wanting them to improve. Sadly a number of ballet teachers grew up the victims of harsh and abusive treatment, and carry it on to the next generation.

[Drew]

2 hours ago, Helene said:

You're not going to get into NYCB from there...

 

2 hours ago, canbelto said:

It's also often not the most prestigious schools that have the most abuse. Big schools - lots of prying eyes. Students so talented they can go elsewhere. 

I always thought of North Carolina School of the Arts as very prestigious, so I tried to look up their ballet alumnae. According to Wikipedia they include several NYCB dancers --LeCrone and Claire Kretzchmar among those still dancing. They both did some "finishing" at SAB, so perhaps one wouldn't go directly from NCSA to NYCB--but it certainly has had a serious reputation for pre-professional training... Among current ABT dancers Murphy studied there....Hayden is mentioned in the first paragraph of Murphy's ABT biography and there is a scholarship named for Murphy at NCSA. In roughly the same generation Maria Ricceto. (And much of the ugliest stuff in the Times report dates to the mid-90s.)

At one time (late 80s) SAB even tapped the Dean of Dance at NCSA to be its new head.  This was a vague memory in my head, but google confirmed it--Robert Lindgren. (Vague memory also recalls something about an  attempt by him to introduce a modern/contemporary dance course at SAB that was NOT well received and may have led to his departure. Others may remember more.) But anyway NCSA has a history as an important arts training institution....

Edited January 21, 2022 by Drew